Chapter 4

I was clearly the one being wronged.

Yet the foolish Ning Jing thought I’d landed a tremendous bargain.

When Young Master Song came to visit, I merely greeted him from a distance.

Ning Jing chased me down the covered walkway, pointed at my nose, and began abusing me.

“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to.”

“What happened to Cousin and my sister had something to do with you. It must have.”

“Now you want to marry into a great house and lord it over me? Do you think you’re worthy?”

“Have some sense. Tell Father to break it off yourself. Otherwise, you’ll regret it.”

I bit my lip, looking bewildered.

“But Young Master Song doesn’t dislike me, and Father went to such trouble to find the match. How could I be so ungrateful?”

He gave me a dark, knowing look.

“If you’re shameless enough to insist on climbing higher, I have ten thousand ways to make Young Master Song teach you a lesson.”

I bit my lip and nodded dejectedly.

“In that case, I’ll speak to Father again.”

Only when I saw Father’s personal steward disappear around the corner did I lift my eyes and ask with interest, “You left Young Master Song alone in the pavilion?”

Ning Jing glanced at me in contempt.

“He drank too much and is resting in a side courtyard. Don’t get any ideas. I’m going there to keep an eye on things myself.”

Was that so?

I followed him before he realized it.

As he pushed open the door—thud.

I knocked him out with a stick and delivered him to the wastrel heir’s large bed.

Fortunately, he’d meant to teach me a lesson and had brought no servant.

It made my task effortless.

Ning Jing’s favorite refrain was that he was the legitimate son of our branch of the family, nobly born.

Naturally, if I wasn’t worthy of such a grand match, he should have it.

So I put the stimulant into Young Master Song’s mouth and bestowed my dear brother upon him.

My dear brother didn’t know that the Song heir preferred men and kept two lovers at a male pleasure house.

Marrying me was merely a cover for his private tastes.

Father knew.

But the arrangement would buy Ning Jing a future. He was perfectly happy to sacrifice an unloved daughter like me.

That night, though, my dear brother was assaulted by Young Master Song. His screams came from the room.

When the servants rushed over, they found Young Master Song with Ning Jing, whose face was deathly pale and whose misery was beyond words.

Father burst in and staggered, as though struck by thunder. His vision went black again and again.

Clutching a handkerchief, I stood behind the crowd, looking hurt and astonished.

“So that’s why my brother wouldn’t let me marry Young Master Song.”

“I’d have let him have the match. There was no need to be so impatient.”

At that, Father was so overcome that he coughed up blood.

His precious legitimate son had become the wastrel’s little bride. It was the worst scandal the Ning household had ever known.

To hide the disgrace, the family sent him to an academy a thousand li away under the pretext of furthering his studies. He was forbidden to return to the capital for five years.

My eldest aunt understood perfectly well that I must have had a hand in it.

But she said a woman who could protect herself possessed a rare and valuable gift.

She approved of my abilities and admired the way I emerged unscathed.

And so, whenever my three cousins came home to pour out their troubles, she called for me too.